Automatic guided vehicle system (AGVS) wherein a driverless vehicle is operated in a predetermined zone within a warehouse, industrial plant or the like are known. The driverless vehicle may carry a pay load such as a product to be delivered from one location to another, onboard robotics for performing a particular operation at a series of locations, and the like. Conventionally, such vehicles are guided over a series of tracks from one position to another wherein no steering mechanism is required onboard the vehicle. Various wire guided driverless vehicle systems are also known. Typically, such systems include a wire embedded in the ground, the wire carrying the necessary information for guiding the vehicle over the wire path.
The present invention is directed to an AGVS of the type which requires no tracks and no wires for guiding the vehicle. The probelm solved by the present invention is that of providing a vehicle with a self-contained navigation system for guiding the vehicle over any one of an almost infinite variety of paths initially prescribed by a base station computer. The system uses complementary onboard navigation systems for tracking vehicle position and bearing and for correcting vehicle position and bearing over selected arc segments, with no need for communication with the base station during navigation.